Introduction

GriefTalk is pleased to offer Community Workshops & Individual Coffee House Sessions to help you feel safe to address the odd silence associated with grief! Get more information here.

You’ve just lost your loved one…..a job has come to an end……your spouse has sent you papers to end your marriage……your loving pet was put to sleep. When we hear of these types of loss, society can connect to the pain associated with the loss; however;

When you lost your unborn child due to miscarriage, you develop PTSD due to a natural disaster causing displacement, your baby is stillborn, your health has stolen your passion for life, your church rejected you, you feel like an orphan due to parental loss and are searching tirelessly for your identity, you know that something is wrong, but you don’t know what it is; these are the griefs that can not be quantified or reported often in the newspaper but they are equally as important.

Whatever your loss has been, trying to do the next thing is not always as easy as it seems.

I am here for you and I hope to assist you through this process of identifying your grief, processing your pain, and achieving the courage in life to continue living not just surviving.

Hello, I am Danita Ogandaga ( o-ghan-da-ga) and I’d like to welcome you to GriefTalk Nation.

Seventeen years ago, life brought me to my knees with the unexpected phone call that my superhero of a dad had died. Shortly after the passing of my father, I also horribly had to watch my mother have assistance breathing on a respirator before we watched her take her last few breaths and my brother ultimately watching her transition from this Earth.

For the next couple of months, I would skirt through life wondering who I was now at the age of 21 years old and what I would have to offer this thing called life without the daily support and encouragement of my parents. Would I have the courage to fight when I wanted to give up? Would I accept my identity.

Like many of you, my parents were ministers and for years my life existence was in the walls of a church. The teaching I received did not really aid me or soothe me when I longed for the embrace of my parents and as a result, I wound up in a line of “seeking fillers”; ultimately turning to older men, drugs, and plenty of relationships to make me whole. I lost touch of any relationship with anyone and isolated into oblivion.

Then the lights came on. We’re taught how to consistently gain things but not what to do when we lose those things. When we experience loss ( of any kind), it is a void existence and we would like to follow a formula or step process to get us out of the pain, but it has never worked this way; and it never will!

Since the passing of my parents and other losses that have occurred in between, I have received much training becoming a social worker, university professor teaching human behavior, and behavioral therapist. Above all, I have underwent a great deal of personal healing to be open for you during this time in your life.

Each day brings with it an opportunity to acknowledge that your existence has changed and a loss has occurred. You suddenly have a strong revelation of what is important and what is not. In essence, the days of being the people’s doormat is suddenly replaced with an authentic love for yourself, the desire to call yourself a forever orphan, is resolved with the embrace of the community around you waiting to love you and affirm you.

My hope for you is that you will, even if not today, be willing to place the aged fermented bottle of emotions that you have carried in your bag on the table. When you are ready, when that beautiful day comes, that you know we are here for you and will be ready and able to sit with you and walk through your grief journey to healing.

If you are ready and believe that GriefTalk connects with your desire for change, contact me so that we can schedule a GriefTalk session that suits your schedule and together, erase the odd silence of grief.

With love and light,

Danita

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